Hunter
by Neonxra
Summary: Prequel to 'Synthetics vs Organics'. This follows Arcen Arterius and his struggles with his family, his mercenary work and love life. And also how he came to work for Cerberus and his meeting with the 'superhuman' Serah.
1. Chapter 1

**Welcome to my newest story. I've decided I'm going to make it into some sort of trilogy, starting with Synthetics vs organics and followed by this one I named Hunter. It's Arcen Arterius' origin story. It does tie in with him meeting Serah, but starts off earlier. Other thing, it's completely Arcen's POV. Enough said for now, please enjoy!**

 **Chapter One.  
Contemplation.**

During my entire childhood, my father was mostly absent. I was born around 2156, one year before our race found out about the human excistance. One year before the first contact war on Shanxi. My mother always said that my father died due to humans and a tower or something, but something didn't make sense to me. Why was he in that tower in the first place?

None could answer me that question. Not even my uncle who said he was there. It had frustrated me since he died, which happen when I was around 1 or 1,5 years old. Not that I realized it when I was that age. But around six, when I saw other boys with their dads, it started to eat away at me. Where was my father? Why wasn't he in our lives?

That's when my mom and uncle started spinning the story that my father was in the military. Which I found out was true, he was a general. They told me he died in a tower, while saving hundreds of turians. Of course that sort of stories work when you're a child. You regard your dad as a hero, especially if you hear those type of stories. So for a few years, I was satisfied with that story. Until I was around 15.

That's when turian's start their bootcamp. A year away from home to get military training. After that, you serve until your 30, then you start as part of the Reserves. From what I gathered it's just work behind the scenes.

My commander back in the day recognised my name. He gave me a stern look before giving me a pat on the shoulder and mentioning what a shame it was to lose someone like general Arterius due to indoctrination. That shocked me to my very core. My entire family had lied to me. My father didn't die in that tower. But I didn't know it was only part of the truth until five years later.

I was working at C-sec, which at the time seemed logical since most turians my age I knew did that. Also, I didn't want to dissapoint my mother. She had high expectations. Mostly because she wanted me to have a better life than her. She was a turian from a bit of a moderate standing. On my fathers side, the Arterius family was pretty high regarded. Probably because my father and uncle both served in military. Our species holds that moral very high.

Anyway, I was working at C-sec, alongside some of my friends. Man those were the times. But all my time there, which was around.. I guess 7 years, I never felt at my place. So much injustice. Lucky for me, I wasn't the only turian with issues within C-sec. My old friend Garrus Vakarian also felt like he couldn't do enough for the people. But awkwardly for me, he followed a human commander turned spectre named Ayden Shepard. You see, Garrus was assigned into investigating my uncle going rogue.

Of course the rumours were that he was indoctrinated by something called a beacon, sited at Eden Prime. It started to seem like indoctrination either ran in my family or was something that seemed easy to use on people. Like some sort of excuse.

So after Garrus leaving C-sec to go with commander Shepard, things got worse and worse around C-sec. But I understood why he left. The higher the rank, the more restrictions we got. There was no way of doing your job without getting told off by your superior. After I left C-sec, I didn't dare to return home. So, I decided to go to Omega.

People on Omega needed help. Omega mostly excisted out of poor people and merc gangs. Some merc gangs seemed to do the right thing, like protecting the weak and poor. From what I've heard when I arrived with my dufflebag and some credits, the Blue Suns were hiring. With my military and survival expertise I thought myself the perfect candidate.

First of all I needed a place to stay. I went over to the appartments, sure, they weren't big, but for one person there should be at least some space. When I got there, I was greeted by another turian. Bodyguard or something. He nodded at me when I went in. There was someone behind a desk, a human. She didn't seem interested in people at all. Or maybe not aliens.

I dropped my dufflebag next to me and leaned on the counter of the desk. After clearing my throat, the human looked up and showed a smile. That smile was fake, I thought to myself, she's clearly disgusted by the aliens living here.

"Can I help you?", she asked me. I showed a small smile. My mother _did_ teach me to be polite to people at all cost. "I'm here to rent an appartment", I answered. The woman tapped something into her omni-tool. In the meantime I looked around. It _seemed_ clean. And so far none came out screaming bloody murder or something. "Name?", I blinked. The woman looked at me irritated. "Your name, sir?", she asked again.

"Arcen. Arcen Arterius", I answered. The woman's.. I suppose humans called it eyebrows? Anyway, she raised them in surprise. Of course, my last name had exceeded me already. "You're family of that rogue spectre Saren?", she eyed me suspiciously. I sighed. What was I going to say? The way she looked at me, it looked like she'd refuse me if I told her the truth.

"No, not that I know", I said. I tried my best to sound confident, I really needed the place to stay. The woman kept looking at me while I was trying my best to keep my composure. "Alright", she told me and got up. She got away from behind the desk and walked ahead of me. I went to grab my duffle bag and followed her. While following her through the complex, I couldn't help but notice how diffrent humans were formed, especially the females. Since I never met to many human females in military I never noticed. Almost all of them I met back then wore armor.

I shook my head and scolded myself. Pleasures like that wasn't why I was here. I needed a job, somewhere to live. Anything but women. Sure, I've already had my fair share of women, but most of them wanted nothing more than a one night stand. At first it's fun, but after a few years it had gotten boring. But the turian females were either to submissive or to.. stern? I don't know what else to call them. Most only cared about hierarchy, a good name to marry into. My name wasn't what it used to be. Since Saren's gone rogue, the Arterius name had been tarnished.

I've slept with Asari before, turians, heck even Krogan. But never a human. Some were interested, but I don't know, guess I wasn't drunk enough to want them. I wasn't like my uncle, who immediately after my father died swore vengeance on all of humanity. I had no problem with humans.

The woman stopped walking and I halted as well. We stopped in front of a door. She gave me some sort of pass. "This is your key, first month's rent is free", she said with a coy smile. She stepped closer to me, causing me to swallow hard. What was she going to do? She brought her face closer to my ear.

"Only for those who are attractive", she whispered and took off. I looked over my shoulder while she walked away. She stopped in her tracks. I quickly turned my head towards the door, trying to use the pass to get it. "You know, I'm always up for something new if you like", she said with a smile. I sighed. A submissive woman wasn't exactly my type. I wanted to work for it. I needed a girl who knew what she wanted.

"Uhm, not right now, thanks for the offer though", I stammered and grabbed my duffle bag when the door opened. "Have a nice evening, miss!", I called out and closed the door behind me. I took a deep breath and breathed out. I looked up to see the apartment. Huge windows, nice view, decent space. This was it.

Welcome home, Arcen.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two.  
The Blue suns.**

Ever since I was little, I couldn't really sleep at new places. Sleepovers at my friends' houses were also mostly a no go. But much to my own surprise, I slept really well in my new appartment. I got up from my bed, got dressed and looked at my omni-tool on where to go next. I needed to find a job.

I didn't have much experience with Omega and job finding here, so I decided to just go out. Maybe some vid-screen would show some place that was looking for someone for hire. I exited my appartment and used the pass that human woman gave me yesterday to lock up. Especially on Omega, you never know. In all honesty, I wanted to look for another way out. That human from yesterday was kinda.. strange. Nice, but strange.

Never met humans _that_ willingly to have sex with aliens. Usually they get drunk a bit. Unless she was a bit drunk. I couldn't really tell. I walked passed the reception and to my surprise, that human woman from yesterday was replaced with a turian. Never met him. Humans and other aliens, mostly humans, seemed to think all turians _and_ looked alike _and_ knew every turian ever.

But to clear things up; no, no we don't.

I gave the turian behind the desk a nod and walked out of the apartments into the streets of Omega. Already I couldn't find any vidscreens, well, I did find them, but not with job information or anything. It did flash the same message over and over. Go to Afterlife. Afterlife? Sounded like some sort of club here. I kept walking, looking at the signs as well as the road ahead, not to disturb anyone along the way.

I found myself in a large space with people lining up for something on the right. I walked over there and noticed an Elcor, most likely the bouncer. Those aliens might be slow, but they were huge and probably pretty strong.

"Excited. Greetings turian, you are welcome here", the Elcor told me. I nodded and went in ahead. The Afterlife. I remember humans believed in such things as heaven and hell. And also the afterlife. It was kind of amusing. Anyway, the club wasn't so big.

Whoever was working for the Blue Suns, might've hung out here. I looked around. There were dancers in the middle with all types of people watching, dancing and drinking. On my right there was a bar. I made a mental note that I'd come back for it later. On the left were stairs going up and somewhere else they went down.

Of course there would be. I went over to the one that went down and was greeted by a batarian in blue armor. Obvious blue suns dude was being very obvious. He was typing into a console when I came into view. "You here for work?", he asked me. I gave a short nod, my eyes fixed on that console of his. What was he writing?

"You know what the work involves?", the batarian contiued. He explained more once he saw the confusion written on my face. "We're here to change things up here in Omega. Someone is out here forming a task group and we need to stop him",

I felt a bit awkward. Someone was doing something good and the Blue Suns wanted to change that? Weren't they about to kill the crime here in Omega? I tilted my head a bit, awaiting further instructions. "We need someone to infiltrate that group and give us the ins and outs", the batarian explained. Seemed easy. Not much diffrent from some of the other work I've done in the past.

"Where do I find this guy?", I asked. The batarian looked past me to the bar. I looked over my shoulder to find what the guy was looking at. It was a turian in blue armor sitting at the bar. That blue armor looked all to familiar to me.

My eyes widen a bit and I clenched my mandibles into my jaw. At the bar was none other than Garrus Vakarian, my old friend and rival.

We sort of grew up together on Palaven. After military at 15 'till 16, I quit the military. Mind you, after the bootcamp you receive at 15, almost every turian serves it's duty and enters a field unit which they serve until they're around 30 years old. But military life wasn't cut for me. I couldn't handle being bossed around by others who thought they were better than me.

Maybe also because of my last name. Around my 15th birthday, most turians knew who my father was and what had happend to him. A lot of rumours spread around. For example that he was a traitor to his kind and insane, willing to brainwash his fellow turians into super soldiers so he could take over the galaxy.

So yeah, of course my surperiors knew it about my dad and throughout the bootcamp gave me the hardest time imaginable. As if it was _my_ fault that my dad was an evil bastard. In my eyes he was still a hero. That's the story I knew and wanted to believe for the most part of my childhood. Anyway, during that bootcamp there was one guy that stood up for me. You can guess.. Garrus Vakarian.

We stuck together and stayed in contact even after bootcamp. Last I heard he was in C-sec, working on the Citadel, so seeing him here in Omega was a huge surprise. The way he sat there made me think something horrible happend. Well, if I had to believe the news it had.

Commander Shepard of the Normandy had died in an explosion that had destroyed the ship. But what I had heard before that was troubling me even more. My own uncle, Saren Arterius had sought out the geth from behind the Perseus Veil and got indoctrinated by something called a reaper. In the proces, he killed himself, which actually seemed like a better fate to me than being a puppet to those alien things.

Some turians seemed to think that Shepard was responsible, but I knew diffrent. Sure, she was there when it happend, but she made sure my uncle made the right decision. Unfortunately with my family's history of indoctrination, some of my friends feared it might as well happen to me. But trust me, I'm not that power driven like my father and uncle were.

Damn shame the were gone, they were some of the best in their craft. I mean my dad was a general and my uncle the youngest turian spectre ever. Then I came along. Pretty average turian mercenary with somewhat of a drinking problem.

Anyway, back to Garrus and me. Of course I joined some mercs on the citadel, thinking that C-sec was some sort of joke. Until I got caught a few times by the same guy over and over again. At a certain point, it became an inside joke. It were minor crimes, like stealing money of off a wealthy volus. Those little bastards are a bit to much obsessed with money.

But this wasn't how I imagined Garrus' life to go. He was always a cut and dry officer of the law. Okay, bit of a hothead. Where I was a little more calm and collected, he had a few warnings from his executives. From what I heard on the extranet news, inside sources mostly, he caught a guy named doctor Saleon. He grew organs inside people he'd later harvest and sell on the black market. Glad the guy was caught though, gave me the chills when I heard the news about him. But of course Garrus had something to do with it. I spoke to him about it, he said something about threatning the guy to harvest his organs first if they had the time for it.

"You know him?", the batarian brought me out of my thoughts. I moved my mandibles, as if I was thinking about something. "I used to", I said. "Doesn't know what I do know, though", I glanced over my shoulder to look at the batarian again. "Might be a trustworthy advantage", I concluded. "He might trust me sooner than a random dude joining", I elaborated when I was met with an confused look.

The batarian thought about it, then nodded. "Infiltrate his team and I'll talk to the bosses to let you join us", he patted me on the shoulder. "Pays actually decent for a shithole like this",

I breathed in hard. This shouldn't be to hard. Right?


End file.
